


Malalignment

by graduating_pitch



Category: Pitch Perfect (Movies)
Genre: Abuse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Domestic, F/F, Hella OOC, I can only write sad things
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-28
Updated: 2018-03-30
Packaged: 2019-04-14 02:23:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,166
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14126061
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/graduating_pitch/pseuds/graduating_pitch
Summary: Beca hates it when Chloe straightens her hair.Recollections from Beca about a relationship that at some point, lost its course along the straight and narrow.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I have nothing but love for those who read/commented on my first fic.
> 
> I apologize if this just reads like pure misery, I kind of just let my head write what it wanted.  
> I was planning to write a companion lovey dovey piece but I got very tired.
> 
> I'll get on it over the Easter Weekend.
> 
> Stay wonderful.

Beca likes when Chloe doesn't straighten her hair.

Because Chloe doesn't straighten her hair when they spend the day curled on the couch, she doesn't straighten her hair when they spend the night in bed.

Away from the prying eyes of the world, Beca feels safe in the quiet sounds and the muted sights. The little light that slips through the half heartedly shut blinds. The music coming from the speakers in Beca's room. Everything coalesces into this full heart, filled with nothing but love.

Chloe's never more herself in these moments, her eyes take on a warmth, her words grow deep from her chest. Chloe says "I love you" whenever she feels like it, whispers the sweet and the profane into Beca's ear. Chloe likes taking control in bed, she revels in leading them both into higher heights.

-

Beca doesn't like it when Chloe starts throwing things.

Because Chloe only throws things when she's really out of control, really not herself. Words lose their meaning, everything Beca tries seems hollow.

Many of the things in Beca's apartment bear the signs of Chloe's wrath. It hurts looking at them sometimes, reminding Beca that this side of Chloe exists, that she can take on this form. The passion, the fire in Chloe's eyes, turns dangerously high, clogging Beca's senses and leaving her running away. The world and its problems seem to explode outward from Chloe, wanting nothing but to destroy around.

Beca doesn't want to admit it, but in her lucid moments, she's forced to come to terms that this is really Chloe too. Everything that makes her in her most beautiful moments are the same things that lead her to rage. Beca hates trying to take control, hates fighting Chloe.

-

So they live in this magnificent dystopia, where the rules are only held by how often Chloe chooses to follow them. No matter how light Beca tries to make her suggestions to Chloe, what she could do, who she could see, they set Chloe off and straight at Beca.

Beca's gotten real good at hiding bruises, from on her skin to what holds her and Chloe together. Patching up the breaks in her armor, the glass on the floor. It's happened enough to make it natural, to expect it. To know it's coming. Beca hates that fact as much as she forgets how abnormal it used to feel.

Explaining to friends that Chloe's just working right now, or sweeping up the glass at 3AM. This is simply how life is. Beca desperately smooths the cracks, tries to make it just good enough. To make Chloe happy. Because when Chloe's happy, Beca's happy.

And Beca believes in a day where she doesn't have to suffer to make Chloe happy.

-

Sometimes when Beca bends down to pick up the pieces, Chloe does too.

Beca hangs on to those days, the ones where Chloe might not say that she needs to change, but she looks at Beca with those stained glass eyes. When they end up exhausted from the days, and Beca falls asleep with Chloe's lips on her temple, her thousandth "I'm sorry" pressed against Beca's skin.

On rarer days, Chloe will even take time between cases to just be with Beca, follow her relentlessly, show her love in the most exquisite of ways. Not by earning her way back in to Beca's heart, but being all of Beca's heart.

When Chloe gives herself to something, she'll give all of herself to it. All of her furor, her terribly wonderful intensity. Beca is awed by it, drawn to it. Enchanted by it, especially when its full focus lies on her. Beca knows Chloe can understand her in those moments, because there's no way all of Chloe could miss the way Beca lets tears slip through her armor.

-

On other days, Beca sometimes won't see Chloe at all.

Those are the days that worry Beca the most. More than any destruction or lashing out could ever summon.

Because now when Chloe sets off like this, Beca's not sure when she'll come back.

If she'll ever.

It could be something innocuous, harmless. A business trip for a week. A particularly difficult case that will leave Chloe holed up in her office for days, studying precedent after precedent.

If Beca tries hard enough after events like this, she can almost see it as a test. A proof of their love. If she twists it enough, it makes her happy that Chloe will nonchalantly return. Because they are together, and they'll stay together. The notion that Chloe needs her spurs Beca on in haggardness.

But it could be breaking point instead, like when Chloe drove all the way back to Atlanta to be with her parents for a month. It could be that she simply doesn't want to see Beca anymore, that she's tired of Beca trying hold on. That she just doesn't want Beca anymore.

Beca tries not to think about it.

She always does.

-

Beca doesn't see many people besides Chloe to be honest.

Work alternates between maddening boredom and the maddening rush of it all, frazzling Beca's frazzled mind even further. The thing about producing is that people want all different aspects of you, want your talents to shine in every constellation configuration they can think of, but they never really want you. You're simply a vessel, a cup to be drained and filled a thousand times over.

She doesn't get out too often. Too much going on at home to really think about it. Nowhere's safe enough to feel good enough to go anywhere. Besides, if she goes out she might miss Chloe in a good mood, and that would make her feel worse than ever before.

She'd talk to the Bellas, but she'd rather be able to talk just one Bella first. Emily, Stacie, they do call. But Beca brushes them off, never lets herself crack around them. She wouldn't want them thinking ill of Chloe, it's not like Beca couldn't handle having her around. Quite the opposite.

And that's okay right?

Chloe's really all she needs.

-

Chloe's all she really needs.

She knows it because Chloe tells her.

She knows it because when she thinks about it, having Chloe stop, even just for a moment to care for her, is the only thing she looks forward to these days. She lives in the spaces where she doesn't have Chloe's affection, and longs for them as a means to pass the time.

She fixes everything for Chloe, she tries to fix herself for Chloe. Make sure that what she does is what Chloe wants. It's not controlling. It's her choice.

Even if Chloe's a blanket over her mind, encapsulating her days, keeping her awake at night, showing up in every dream.

But Chloe's so much nicer in Beca's dreams. In her memories of the past. She'll laugh at Beca's sarcasm, instead to blowing up over it. She'll trace the lines of Beca's face with tenderness, never threaten her or belittle her. The Chloe in Beca's dreams is someone she really trusts, and Beca knows she lies underneath present Chloe's skin, waiting to come out.

Beca hates waking up from her dreams.

-

Because it didn't always used to be like this, Beca swears.

Sure, Chloe was always a little intense, a little prone to an outburst or two.

But it was always in the pursuit of goodness, of making things better than before. That's why she worked so hard to become a lawyer, worked even harder to make it to New York. Chloe gave everything of herself to make the world better.

Maybe it was the New York air, maybe it was the time just passing. Maybe Chloe was burning out, all her best years being spent buried underneath stress and paperwork. All Beca knew was that it was getting worse than before, the fracture lines once easily ignored now hiding hollowness underneath the cracks.

Maybe Beca was just too blind to see it back then, too much ambitious, too much in love. Because she swears that they were in love back then, just blind in all the wrong ways. Never seeing how much the other cared for the other until it came overflowing onto each other.

-

When Chloe straightens her hair, Beca tenses up.

Because it means Chloe's close to breaking again, the world is close to her ear. It means she needs some semblance of control, over her hair, over her world, over the house.

Beca fears it, counts the days in between. She knows what sort of mood Chloe will fall into, knows what sort of days she'll be living over in the near future. Beca takes on an animal fear, every fiber of her being gearing her to run while her feet stay locked to the floor.

She watches the hair straightener, almost hypnotized by it. Watches it press into Chloe's hair, flattening out the texture, the viscerality of it all. Catches the steam in her eye as it comes off the metal.

She watches the shape of it.

And traces the burn scars along her neck.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> By request here is part two of this story
> 
> Thanks yall.

Chloe sits at the dining table, bank account open on her computer.

 

The tears fell unbidden, Chloe's world seemed to crack into glass fractures.

 

Because Beca can't be that absent minded. She had to know that Chloe would see the airplane ticket, one way. She had to be making a statement, a stab at Chloe. The implication stood heavy in Chloe's throat, her worse fears materializing in the glare of the computer screen. Her weariness seemed to come about her all at once, grounding the room, her legs, her hope.

 

She knew had known, distantly, that Beca had every right to leave her. That these past few years had spiraled away from her. That everything wasn't as beautiful, as bright they had promised each other it would be that wonderful night in the south of France.

 

But couldn't Beca see that she was trying? God, she was trying. After everything that Beca had done to her in the years that they weren't together, Chloe knew that this would be her everything. But after everything Beca had done, Chloe knew that all that waiting, all the hurting, it wouldn't just fade to bliss.

 

She held everything inside her, pregnant with feeling. Beca was her lover, her life, Beca was her destroyer, her final death. Beca was the stars in her eyes, pushing her to new heights. Beca was her scars, the ones freshly made.

 

The scars that Beca hadn't seen yet. They hadn't been intimate in so long, Beca hadn't seen the new cuts along her ribs, the labored breathing she took in the bathroom. They lived in foreign walls to each other, alone in their desperate struggle to stay together. Chloe didn't know whether Beca even went these days, who she talked to.

 

Chloe lost herself a fantasy, one where she wasn't losing her mind, and Beca didn't have to beg to be all of hers. Where they could fix things, take their love back to the good old days...

 

-

 

Chloe woke up in a haze, Beca gently grasping her hands in her own. She was still sitting in the dining room, she blearily noticed. She must have fallen asleep waiting for Beca to come home. The very same Beca who stared down at her with tear stained eyes, make up melting like lines falling apart.

 

"Oh honey."

 

Beca's tone broke Chloe's heart. Because she was still trying to be the strong one, still trying to look after Chloe after everything. She was acting like Chloe wasn't the ruiner, the one who tore everything apart. She was still for Chloe, in her own broken way.

 

Chloe was still for Beca, but in this moment, she knew she was toxic to Beca. She had been for a long time, eroding Beca's confidence, her hope. Taking away what truly made Beca herself, and had hoarded it all in her hollow halls of self assurance. Chloe gave everything she had of herself, too much. All her fury and listlessness she had laid on Beca, like a curse.

 

Beca was so strong to still even be in the same room as Chloe, so beautiful to still even care, yet she was broken. Chloe had broken her, taken advantage of her loyalty, her love. Used it to spur herself on in the cruelest of ways, take Beca down with her as she tried to take down herself.

 

Her brokenness broke Chloe, and they sat crying until the morning outlasted their tears.

 

-

 

Chloe helped pack Beca's things.

 

Beca didn't ask for it, Beca didn't even know.

 

But Chloe took time off, left Mitchell Legal Associates to her associates for now, and started collecting everything that belonged to Beca.

 

Beca's clothes, which were honestly Chloe's too at this point. Beca's mixing equipment, once holy and reverent to Chloe, now scraped and abused from Chloe's rage. Beca's makeup, a method in which Beca hid the real Chloe from the world. Everything that Beca owned had Chloe's touch over it, yet when she piled it in the suitcase, it felt like she was setting ships from the harbor, a promise to return unpromised, and the seas welcoming more than the shore ever would be.

 

And it felt cathartic. It felt like unveiling the future. It felt like the most right out of anything Chloe had done since she first lost control.

 

Losing control had felt good at the time. It had felt like Chloe was really for herself in that moment, that after everything she finally was fighting for herself. But it had been addictive, too much too fast, and she had forgotten had to do anything else but fight for herself. Fight Beca for herself. When she really didn't need to, have to, or sometimes even want to.

 

Chloe hoped it wouldn't be the same here.

 

Chloe had gone too far, but she was scared of losing herself again. The cracks had already begun to show, her clothes had already begun to stain scarlet again. Her hair curled around her head like a fog. Her mind seemed to split eternally from end to end, from her suffering to Beca's, what should be and what could be, everything now too late.

 

-

 

Maybe Chloe loved too fiercely.

 

She had loved fully, with everything back then. But she had let the cards fall where they may. She had let Beca run off with Jesse, she had let her own sweeping sadness take control of her days. Watch everyone else get what they wanted, treasure what they had, love who they cared for. And Chloe had wanted that, but not known how to have it.

 

It had been beautiful in the days where it all had finally coalesced, but before it imploded, pushed too hard on itself. When Chloe realized that she could simply take what she wanted, if she was bold enough, if she was brave enough. If she was tired enough of being the third, fourth choice, she could try.

 

She could have everything. Everything she ever wanted. A chance to make the world better, a life where she felt like all was in reach, and a love that laid in a girl since they first met.

 

But was having what she wanted really worth destroying it with her touch?

 

Chloe wasn't really sure anymore, wasn't sure about her dreams anymore. They turned on her at some point, maybe she turned against them. Maybe what she stood for wasn't what she had hoped for. Maybe loving with everything was the same as being ravenous, the maw of her ambition swallowing and devouring beauty whole.

 

There was only one thing in Chloe's mind that she was sure about in this moment, constricted by the four walls of this apartment, that Beca should leave.

 

-

 

It was the day before her flight when Beca came home early.

 

Chloe dropped the razor blade in the bathroom floor, clanging noisily. But she couldn't find it in her to move, blood trails like roots on her skin, planting on the floor.

 

She was waiting to be revealed. Waiting for Beca to see how broken Chloe had become.

 

Beca had sighed, like she had done the first time she had saw Chloe like this. Then she left to get the bandages. Chloe waited, and bled, and cried without tears. Until she had heard sobbing that was not her own.

 

When Chloe came into the kitchen, Beca was crying, clutching onto the cabinet handles like a vice, her body moving in shuddering breaths. She was bent over, defeated, shattered by what had been done to her. What Chloe had done to her. In that moment, Chloe helplessly watching, was when she knew she had really fucked up.

 

She fucked up the most precious thing in the world, she had taken the beauty of the world and stomped in among ashes. She had ravaged this poor little flower to dust, and she had slaughtered two hopes with one foolish, selfish heart.

 

So she stood behind Beca, hugging her deeply, staining Beca's white shirt with blood, telling her in a thousand ways to leave Chloe, to find herself again, to fix herself again. Be everything that she was before Chloe had malaligned her soul. The words caught on her grief, so after she had wrapped her wounds, they took to bed once more, for everything that once was.

 

Chloe had never kissed so sweetly until that night.

 

She had never kissed in goodbyes until that night.

 

-

 

_To my love,_

_don't wake me when you leave._

_So that you may leave without regret,_

_and so that I may not fight it._

_For the truest desire of my heart is to see you happy._

_And that desire must let you leave._

_Perhaps among the stars,_

_another time,_

_we can love again._

_But you love too sweetly to love a sour soul like mine._

_And  I love much too fully to fully love you in the ways that you need._

 

-

 

Chloe had a dream last night.

 

The stars shone with brilliance in the summer sky. They told of the ending of all things, the world heaving its last breath. Nothing that came before mattered, all the truths and lies of the world, all the good and evil aligning in their final moments.

 

Beca held her hand all through the evening.

 

Even as the world fell apart, ignited their bones in furious repeal, they clutched to each other, for comfort, for everything.

 

Beca was all that Chloe needed. Chloe was all that Beca needed. For all that could be, they lived in the grandest of timelines, the truest of worlds. The one where they knew each other fully, held each other completely, loved without restriction or malice.

 

Chloe had never felt more alive, more out of control. She reveled in it, the world chasing its own zenith in flame, the truth finally alighting.

 

And when she woke up, Beca was gone.


End file.
